Tonic Tasting Twenty-Ten

To follow up on my recent windmill chase I decided to see how my old standby tonic, Schweppes, stands up against a couple of self-proclaimed “premium” tonics, Q Tonic and Fever Tree. To maintain the scientific integrity of this experiment, I used the proportions found here.

I am sure that my high school science teachers would be disgusted with me, but I went in with a fairly weak hypothesis, “I don’t have a clue which one will prove superior, but I get to mix three cocktails and drink them all!” About half way through my testing, I decided to add a little bit of merit to this by judging each tonic on three tiered variables. First and foremost was taste. Second, based on the claims of one bottle, I compared carbonation. At the bottom, and to be used purely as a tiebreaker, I decided to look at the ingredients used. I intentionally did not take cost into account, as obviously you cannot put a price on an amazing cocktail.

I will begin with taste; for the sake of journalistic integrity I will admit to enjoying all three immensely and at the end of three cocktails, could not crown one the obvious winner. Q Tonic had a more distinctive flavor, it was lighter and less sweet than the other two, but the result left me felling like my drink was watered down. The Fever Tree and the Schweppes versions were nearly indistinguishable in taste. I doubt that even the most discerning palate would be able to tell the difference between the two on the first sip and surely not after two or three rounds. For round one, I am declaring a three-way tie between the competitors, but the judge deserves an honorable mention for triple fisting on a Friday afternoon!

Carbonation, the only reason I included this is I felt I needed another paragraph and Q Tonic makes a point of saying they use “champagne carbonation” on their label. I will save you all the suspense and admit that after thirty seconds in the glass the carbonation in all three was nearly gone and none of them seemed any different.

This brings me to our last criteria the quality of ingredients. I have often been accused of using premium booze in drinks where the average drunk will not be able to tell the difference, and while I agree with this to a point, I also feel that to make a well made cocktail one cannot scrimp on the quality of the booze. I feel the same about the other ingredients in a drink. So in looking at these three tonics, the premium brands seem much more concerned with their ingredients. Q uses organic agave as its sweetener and Fever Tree uses cane sugar, while Schweppes uses “high fructose corn syrup and/or sugar.” That vaguery of “and/or” makes me a little wary. The balance of the ingredients is also indicative of the smaller companies choosing to use more organic and natural ingredients. So for this round, I have to give a nod to Q and Fever Tree.

In conclusion, I will say that neither of the challengers proved to be so superior to Schweppes that I feel a need to replace it, but both were also tasty enough to be used without reservation. I do like the fact that Schweppes is readily available, where as I had to search in nicer specialty stores for the other two. So it comes down to your tolerance for mass-produced products containing high fructose corn syrup versus products produced in smaller quantities using superior ingredients. In a perfect world, I would probably throw my support behind Fever Tree due to it tasting nearly identical to Schweppes but made using better ingredients from a smaller company. The fact that it is more difficult to get though will probably equate to me still using a healthy amount of Schweppes. As for Q, I do like the distinctive flavor and am going to do some follow up experiments with different spirits and see if I can find it a permanent place in my mixer repertoire.

Building A Better Gin & Tonic (A.K.A. Reinventing the Wheel)

Few things taste better on a hot summer day than an ice-cold gin and tonic. In a heat induced haze I decided to set out on a quixotic journey to try and find the perfect recipe for this warm weather staple and then improve on it.

Most people are at least mildly familiar with the history of this combination and its place in the lore of the British Empire. For those like me who are casualties of the American education system, this grand concoction was introduced by the army of the British East India Company. Tonic contains quinine, which was used to prevent malaria, but it had a very bitter taste. So someone had a brilliant revelation: what better way to make medication more palatable than to add booze and sip it at sundown!

My own history with this cocktail is much more sordid, not only was this the drink of choice on my twenty-first birthday, but it is my very best inept bartender story. I was in London a few years ago after two weeks in the UK. I had sipped scotch in Scotland and and consumed more than my fair share of pub pints around the city. It was my last night and I felt it my obligation as a man of the cocktail to have a gin and tonic before leaving. I wandered down to the bar in the lobby of my hotel, a nice establishment in an upscale neighborhood, and asked the kind chap behind the bar for a gin and tonic. He responded with a look of confusion and I became mildly concerned. I was in London, at a bar and a simple gin and tonic was causing the barman distress, at first I thought it was a joke, what reasonably educated bartender in London can’t make this British staple. I quickly realized that this guy was not joking and preceded to painfully walk him through the drink, literally ice cube by ice cube. The result was drinkable, but I was totally disgusted at what passed for a bartender. That was my last trip to London, but next time I’m staying at the Savoy, or at least near enough I can use their bar as my own.

Okay, back to the drink at hand. Despite my previous anecdote, I don’t think I’ve ever had an awful gin and tonic, but I also can’t recall having an incredible one. I decided that this warm weather and medicinal classic deserved better and I undertook the enviable task of creating the quintessential gin and tonic. I went into this well aware that I was probably fighting an uphill battle against not only the laws of physics, but probably Murphy as well. I began with the most basic dilemma the gin to tonic ratio and from there experimented with different techniques to bring the drink to life. Alas, the results were worth the time and effort; behold the second coming of the gin and tonic!

Start with two ounces of Plymouth gin in an empty old fashioned glass, gently place a slice of lime into the glass and muddle well to release the juice as well as the oils, fill the glass with ice and add three ounces of Schweppes tonic. I have sampled most of the readily available supermarket brand tonics and Schweppes is the best of them. That’s all there is to it. I polled a distinguished panel of judges to validate my findings against a cocktail made with the same proportion of ingredients in the traditional manner and the results were conclusive.

While at its peak the sun may have never set on the British Empire, but the time has come for the sun to set on mediocre gin and tonics. Serve these to your friends with a nod to the absolute genius who thought to fight malaria with cocktails and the ballsiness needed to take over half the globe from an island in the Atlantic!

Gin & Tonic

2 oz gin

3 oz tonic

slice of lime

Pour the gin into an empty old fashioned glass, add the slice of lime and muddle. Fill the glass with ice and add the tonic. Stir and serve.